April 22, 2009

Quick Hits

Please don't think that I don't have an opinion on the daily minutiae just because I don't comment on it. This post will attempt to rectify this oversight since your right to my opinion on these matters supersedes my right to blog, or something like that.

Of course Obama's going to buddy-up to Chavez. It's like buddying up to his younger self or buddying up to Bill Ayres. I'm just sayin'...

Ham of Bone wants to know if Perez Hilton thinks Obama is a dumb b-tch. The answer is no, because Hilton knows that Obama's a politician and you know how to tell if a politician is lying, right? The great line in all of this comes from "Mr. Pete", aka Elena's husband:

I'm wondering what qualifies Perez Hilton to be a judge at the Miss USA contest in the first place. Mr. Pete said it was like asking a cat person to judge a dog show.

Thank you Mr. Pete, now we're talking.

Except that he's spending us into bankruptcy and has approved abortionphilic executive orders, there's little about Obama's first 100 days that I've disliked. (I realize that's like a husband saying that except for his wife's alcoholism and running around on him she's been a peach but...) But there's a new test for him. Heard Judge Robert Bork say yesterday that prosecuting the Bush administration would set a terrible precedent, which Obama apparently has yet to rule out. Bork explained how that's what banana republics do, criminalize political differences. Let's hope Obama doesn't listen to the worst impulses of his fellow party members.

Really great season of 24, after a couple weak ones. Also Chuck wasn't bad last night although I really didn't need to see Yvonne Strahovski in her underlovelies, as Mrs. Darwin so graciously puts it. It's the erotic equivalent of an atomic bomb.

And now something completely different...(can you tell I've recently watched Rocky & Bullwinkle?). I downloaded via Project Gutenberg Typhoon by Joseph Conrad, one of the sea stories in his collection titled Sea Stories. I like the idea of reading about the sea even though it hardly ever pans out. There is something so different from the reality of the ocean that doesn't seem to translate well, or perhaps I haven't tried enough different authors. A western, by contrast, can take me straight to that desert town; I can see the catci and smell the copperheads.

The Word That Dare Not Speak Its Name: Our pastor continued his string of not mentioning the “m-word” (mercy) on Divine Mercy Sunday.

I vote yes on local school levies probably 90% of the time, but it still irritates me when the issue is framed one-sidely. The Dispatch editor writes: "School districts are asking voters for more money to build and operate schools. Where levies fail, districts are threatening to close schools and eliminate teaching positions." Why not: "School districts are asking voters for more money to build and operate schools. Where levies pass, property owners will be further pressed in a tight economy and foreclosures increased. Where levies fail, districts are threatening to close schools and eliminate teaching positions." The funny thing is there is little evidence of a link between money (i.e. smaller class sizes) and a better education.

I get the impression from my non-Catholic father-in-law that he viewed the Georgetown/Obama controversy as the fault of Obama handlers, where I laid the fault on Georgetown for accommodating the request.

Susan Boyle and the Heisenberg principle - can it be applied to bloggers too given our micro-fame? From the paper of record (the New York Post):

Most disturbing of all, perhaps, is that not since Saturday has Susan Boyle been Susan Boyle. It's a permutation of the Heisenberg principle: That 30 million people have heard her, seen her, embraced her has already changed who she is. The shy churchgoer who said that her recently deceased mother encouraged her to "take the risk," who admitted in her audition that she has never been kissed, who has forever lived as something of an accidental outcast - she now seems too much of this world. "I've been for a meeting with Sony BMG, but I can't say much about it," she said this week. "It's early days." Susan Boyle is now one of us. And that is really a shame.

5 comments:

Oh, the things I've been missing since I stopped watching beauty pageants!

The only thing I find odd is that Miss California seemed thrown by that question. From the US media and American 'bloggers alike, I get the impression that homosexual "marriage" is a very hot issue in the States at the moment. With Perez Hilton among the judges, it was practically a given that a contestant would be asked to comment along those lines.

I've haven't watched a pageant in 20 years, but it does seem like contestants might've expected that question, had they done their research. On the other hand, you might not expect controversial political questions in a beauty pageant.

My favourite controversial question, from a Miss Universe pageant in the last decade (and I paraphrase):

"If the reigning Miss Universe were to become pregnant, should she be allowed to continue her reign?"

Miss Philippines clearly did not expect it and gave a "Why not?" sort of answer.

Miss Botswana talked about expressions of femininity and gave an emphatic "Yes" answer.

Guess which one was crowned? =P

(Personally, I would have done a Carrie Prejean and said, "No way! If she's going to be stripped of her crown for getting married, then she should be stripped of her crown for having a baby out of wedlock!" It's probably a good thing that I'm not pageant material, because I'd lose every last one anyway.)

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